Personal profile

Biography

Tinashe Jakwa is a PhD Candidate in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Western Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of International Relations (with Distinction) from the same institution. From January to July 2019, Tinashe is a PhD Fellow/Visiting Scholar with the University of Pretoria's Future Africa Institute, Department of Political Sciences, and the Centre for Governance Innovation (GovInn). Her research interests include peace/state-building in Africa, political theory, African politics and international relations. More specifically, Tinashe’s research explores the determinants of political instability and peacebuilding policy failures on the African continent, namely in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Tinashe is a political and security risk analyst who has written extensively on geopolitical developments on the African continent. She has appeared on various TV and radio platforms, including ABC News, Channel 10’s The Project, CNN, Radio National Australia, Triple R FM’s The Grapevine, and 2SER, providing commentary on political developments on the African continent. Tinashe is also a published author of short stories. Her stories have appeared in anthologies by Margaret River Press and Ethos Books Singapore. She has also spoken at the Perth and Sydney Writers’ Festivals. She is available for media comment.

Roles and responsibilities

Doctoral Researcher - Political Science and International Relations - School of Social Sciences

Research

Tinashe's research sits at the intersection of International Relations and African Studies. It examines the policy responses stemming from a ‘weak states’ peace-building policy frame, and the ways in which they contribute to political instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Her research further examines the ways in which today’s ‘weak states’ framework functions as a means of justifying external interventions on the African continent and critically engages peace-building actors’ civil society building and security sector reform initiatives that are aimed at ‘strengthening’ purportedly ‘weak’ African states. Tinashe's research, therefore, interrogates conventional characterisations of ‘the state’, ‘state strength’, ‘weakness’, and ‘civil society’, and examines the degree of ‘weak states’ policy frame convergence between different peace-building actors’ policymaking and implementation activities. The aim is partly to determine the extent to which peacebuilding policy controversies between peacebuilding actors at different governance scales are attributable to divergent policy preferences stemming from a 'weak states' policy frame. Tinashe's research focuses on the DRC as a case study.

Funding overview

Tinashe's research is funded by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

Community engagement

Tinashe is a Postgraduate Fellow/Coordinator with the UWA Africa Research & Engagement Centre (AfREC), and Assistant Secretary of the Organisation of African Communities of Western Australia (OACWA), through which she is actively engaged in various community projects and engagement activities.

Languages

Tinashe is fluent in Shona and English, and proficient in French.

Current projects

PhD Project - Desecuritising the Congo: Examining the impacts of the 'weak states' policy frame on peacebuilding outcomes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Project (with D. Mickler, F. Fozdar and H. Gebreselassie) on the relationship between the African diaspora in Australia and Australian foreign policy towards Africa.

Keywords

International relations

Peace-building

State-building

Political theory

Governance

Africa's International Relations

African Politics

African history

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

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